


Lucifer, Season 3, Episode 13, Til Death Do Us Part

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s03e13 Til Death Do Us Part, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 03, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 10:11:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19148941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode. Complete.





	Lucifer, Season 3, Episode 13, Til Death Do Us Part

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to say Welling's acting wasn't one of the problems I had with Smallville, but I didn't catch my mistake until after posting.

So far, this and the pilot episode are the only ones I’ve seen. I checked this one out when I heard about the kiss shared between Tom Ellis’s character, Lucifer, and Tom Welling’s character, Cain/Marcus Pierce.

I originally thought I’d only seen Ellis in this show, but looking at IMBD, it turns out I have seen him in other things, but he didn’t play any big roles in them. As for Welling, I used to watch Smallville. Then, due to the show doing numerous things I didn’t like, I stopped, but Welling’s acting was not amongst my list of complaints.

Based on the previews and reading TV tropes, I’ve gathered: Cain wants to die, Lucifer has promised to help, Kevin Alejandro’s character is **still** in the show, and a demon named Maze is a psycho with a complicated love life.

In regards to the third one, I don’t have anything against Alejandro as an actor or person. From the few episodes I saw, I liked his character on Southland. It’s just, most of the time, I hate whatever character he happens to be playing.

Open to Lucifer attempting to kill Cain with a chainsaw. Unimpressed, Cain makes it clear he’s tried literally every suicide method known. There’s a funny bit where he shows some excitement in explaining how cutting him in half will not result in two Cains, but Lucifer dismissively brushes this aside as, “Wolverine rules.”

They have a conversation about why Lucifer cares about being able to kill him, and Lucifer’s answer is: It’ll be nice to thwart God by removing the curse God placed on Cain. Then, he throws a demon blade at Cain, and even more unimpressed, Cain leaves.

Over to Detective Chloe Decker and Alejandro’s character. Admittedly, he doesn’t do anything to annoy me during this scene. They’re examining a woodchipped body in the suburbs. Talking to witnesses does nothing to establish why the woman might have been killed.

Going over to Maze and Lucifer, she’s excitedly showing off her weapons, and upon learning he’s already tried stabbing Cain with a demon blade, she’s understandably irritable he didn’t tell her this before she hauled all her heavy weapons over. Getting over this, she suggests Decker might make Cain vulnerable the same way Decker does Lucifer, but he dismisses this.

However, this does give him the idea he needs to find out what makes Cain emotionally tick.

Cue him sitting in Cain’s rearranged office sporting a pair of glasses and a notebook. Cain’s reaction to Lucifer during almost all of the episode can be summed up as: He’s unimpressed. There’s some irritability, sometimes, he veers close to angry, but most of the time, he’s just done.

There’s an actor allusion when Lucifer notes, “Everyone has a kryptonite, lieutenant.”

Veering briefly off-topic, spellcheck recognises ‘Krypton’ but not ‘Kryptonite’. I looked it up, and it turns out the element Krypton was discovered in 1898. So, did the creator(s) of Superman know this?

Back to the show, Cain leaves, and when he runs into Decker, she’s surprised and happy to see him still around. Giving him the file on the victim, it’s established said victim was living under a fake name after having faked her death.

Popping over, Lucifer comments on Cain having experience with fake deaths and living under assumed identities, and Cain isn’t exactly subtle in making it clear he used to work Missing Persons’, and so, this must be what Lucifer means, nothing else, shut up in front of the mortal, Lucifer.

I’m not sure how well I’ll explain this, but one thing I really like about Ellis’ performance is he really manages to give off tons of homoerotic vibes throughout the episode. The performance he gives here of Lucifer being a gadfly trying to help a person he has a tentative alliance with works perfectly, but at the same time, if he were playing a character who’s either trying to get someone to give him a chance romantically or trying to prove to someone they made the right choice in giving him a chance romantically, he wouldn’t have to change much from the performance he’s giving now for it to completely work.

In the next scene, the three are talking about the victim being a chemist who cooked up illegal drugs, and Alejandro’s character comes in. I’m sort of on his side when he correctly identifies K-Pop as a genre of music only for Lucifer to make fun of him for not knowing it’s also a type of ecstasy. Hopefully, he doesn’t work in narcotics, because, then, yeah, he should know this, but personally, I’m the sort of person who rarely thinks of drugs when I hear the street names for them.

They all agree Cain and Decker will meet Lucifer at his nightclub in an hour.

Meanwhile, Maze wants something more challenging from the bounty hunting agency she’s freelancing for, and then, she falls in lust with Charlotte. From what I’ve read, Charlotte was an attorney who went to Hell, and then, ended up back on Earth. She’s now an amnesiac atoner.

Maze predatorily invades her space before bouncing to go hogtie a fugitive.

At Lucifer’s club, he’s disappointed Cain hasn’t come with his (Lucifer’s) canonical love interest, and he informs her _he’s_ the one who Cain is sticking around for, not her. “It turns out we have quite a bit in common.”

He reveals his bartender is also a drug dealer, and the drug dealing bartender informs her that the victim stole from Korean drug dealers. The head of said drug dealers frequently hangs out at a karaoke bar, and Lucifer wants to go get information asap, though, if Decker’s up for it, he’s completely down with them doing a duet, too.

I do respect the fact Decker is all about going about this via competent police work, but also, she’s known Lucifer for, at least, a year by now, hasn’t she?

As for him, he votes to do whatever will put him back in contact with Cain the quickest, and since ditching the proper police work will do so…

She does an awesome imitation of him when she says, “You can’t just walk in there with your three-piece suit and say, ‘Hello, drug dealers!’”

Offended, he declares, “I would never do that.”

And if he added, ‘In English,’ he would have been telling the truth. Greeting the Korean/Korean-American with such an opening in _Korean_ , though-

There’s fighting, and Ellis would make a great action star. He gets to the head drug dealer, and next scene has HDD talking to Decker. The victim paid back what she stole with interest, and so, HDD isn’t responsible for her death. He adds the unforgivable thing she did wasn’t the stealing, it’s the fact she and her amazing formula wouldn’t come back into the business.

Finishing, he says he and his men will cooperate fully with Decker, and when Decker talks to Lucifer privately, Lucifer reveals he gave the victim’s formula to HDD, and having this is supposedly worth prison time.

Yeah, I mean, unless he gets killed in prison, someone comes up with an even better formula in the meantime or manages to obtain this one, drugs are decriminalised/legalised and almost everyone wants to buy from a reputable, non-criminal regardless of how better the unregulated stuff he has to offer is, and that’s assuming decriminalisation/legalisation wouldn’t produce chemists just as smarter, if not smarter, than the victim who could, again, figure out the formula or create a better version.

Sure, the last will never happen. Certain narcotics will never be decriminalised/legalised in certain countries. But him dying in prison and the formula becoming useless or obtained by rivals are realistic possibilities with a high chance of happening.

Lucifer practically begs for Cain to be brought in now, but Decker decides to try look through the victim’s computer to find out if the victim was back in the drug business. He discovers the external hard-drive contains pills and a note threatening death.

Finally, they’re in Cain’s office, and Lucifer is all, ‘I’m totally focused on you and, by extension, this case.’ The pills were basically designer Adderall, not ecstasy, and they discuss getting close to the neighbours to find out who might have sent it. There’s a house for rent, but it’s only open to couples.

I don’t think this is legal, but I could be wrong.

Decker and Alejandro’s character are out since the whole neighbourhood knows they’re cops, but Lucifer has an idea.

The next scene has the type of married couple who are annoying in their cheerful friendliness come to welcome a pink-sweater wearing Lucifer to the neighbour. Unlike certain other people, he’s genuinely thrilled by the cheerful friendliness, and he calls, “Honey, we have guests!”

Appearing, Cain looks like a serial killer who wants to kill everyone, starting with his supposed loving, committed partner. His cozy, domestic wardrobe probably plays a part in this, though, serial killer expression aside, he looks like a regular suburban dad rather than whatever Lucifer in the pink sweater does.

One thing I really love about Welling’s performance is there never any hint of homophobia. Cain hates this assignment, but it’s because of his complicated relationship with Lucifer, not because Lucifer is a man. And even if this were with Decker, he’d still have a hard time, because, he’s not a particularly sociable person.

Later, Cain and Lucifer are getting ready to have the AC&F couple over for dinner, and Cain makes it clear this is strictly for the case. Based on the matching rings, I’m assuming they’re pretending to be married.

As an aside, it’s actually been several years since same-sex marriage was legalised in all 50 USA states, but sometimes, I still find myself wondering if fictional characters are living in a state where it is legal.

Lucifer tells him not to give their guests his, “resting Pierce face”.

“What face?”

Cue Cain making the guests uncomfortable with his, ‘I might legit hate my so-called husband, and if not for the fact I’m hoping he can kill me, I’d kill him,’ face.

Lucifer asks how they met, and adorably, they’re high school sweethearts who were biology partners. The husband asked her out when they were doing a dissection.

When the question’s turned back to them, Cain claims they met at work, but Lucifer corrects they actually met through Lucifer’s bastard of a dad. The couple is sympathetic over them having to deal with a homophobic, disapproving parent, and Lucifer makes Cain even more restrainedly homicidal by being touchy-feely and using pet names.

Elsewhere, Alejandro’s character and Charlotte are having a dinner date when Maze interrupts. She clearly wants Charlotte, he clearly wants her gone, and Charlotte is wondering if two want to have a threesome with her.

I see you’ve made yourself at home on this show, awkward.

Back at dinner, the husband has a nut allergy, and Lucifer subtly tries to find out if Cain could possibly be killed via allergies. The answer is no, and Cain tries to steer things back to subtly finding out about the community and the victim’s place in it.

The couple talks about someone leaving threatening notes to people in the neighbourhood about everything from gardening to holiday decorations.

Lucifer tries to get them interested in finding out more about Cain, but Cain does that thing where a person makes it clear they don’t want to be rude but it’s time for the guests to leave now, please, take the hint.

However, Lucifer’s response is, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, darling,” as he pours even more wine.

Back to Charlotte and Maze, Alejandro’s character has gone, and Maze realises Charlotte has literally returned from Hell. Charlotte goes on about wanting a normal life, and bouncing, Maze says she only thought she was attracted to Charlotte, but really, Charlotte just reminds her of her old life.

Over with the fake married supernatural beings, the human couple is leaving. In a nearby car, it’s revealed Decker has been listening to everything, and she and Lucifer talk via walkie-talkie.

Starting to go on about how restricting the rules of suburbia are, Lucifer then insists Cain clean since Lucifer cooked. Heh.

The next day, Lucifer is wearing American flag underwear during a mildly PG-13 outdoor party he’s throwing.

Later, at 4 in the morning, he’s building something in the garage, and Cain wants to wait until morning to continue their annoy the crap out of the entire neighbourhood plan. Bringing up Cain’s lack of involvement, Lucifer says the whole point of this is to spend time together, and Cain retorts, no, the whole point is to catch a killer.

And yeah, I know this is part of the joke, but if Ellis were sincerely playing someone who was frustrated and longing due to wanting to be closer to a largely uninvolved romantic partner, he wouldn’t have to change much at all of his current performance.

Outside, Decker tries to warn them someone’s approaching the house, but they’re too busy arguing about Cain’s refusal to emotionally open up.

She ends up giving chase, and they discover the husband part of the AC&F couple was doing something to their mailbox.

In the station, the husband confesses to leaving all of the threatening notes except the one the victim got. He was a satisfied customer of hers, and he didn’t kill her.

Behind the mirror, Cain and Lucifer argue over Cain putting something down the garbage disposal, and waving the ring, Cain declares, “Thank God this marriage is over.”

Decker comes inside to announce, since their cover is still intact, she has a new plan.

Holding the ring back out, Lucifer title drops, “Til death do us part, darling.”

Next, cameras are set up for an outdoor barbecue the two are having, and Decker talks to them from inside. Hilariously, there’s a Photoshopped picture of the two being all lovey-dovey in Hawaii attire.

A guestbook is set up, and when a man signs but his girlfriend/wife doesn’t, Cain politely asks that everyone signs.

Then, Cain and Lucifer get into a spat. Lucifer is annoyed at how Cain organised the table, and he’s annoyed it seems he’s throwing everything into the party/their faux relationship/the agreement for him to kill Cain, and Cain’s like, ‘You’re selfishly doing all this for you, and I’m only here, because, I don’t have any other options.’ Finally, he declares Lucifer isn’t a man of his word.

Everyone at the party’s feeling the awkward, but unlike how I’d handle things, none of them are trying to subtly sneak away.

Lucifer storms off, and Decker chases him down.

“I just can’t be around him right now.”

Look, I don’t know if Ellis has ever played a QUILTBAG character or not. I know there’s no way he happened to misinterpret the script he was given. He is playing this all for comedy. Lucifer isn’t in love with/falling in love with/romantically into Cain.

But I cannot stress how bizarrely sincere he’s also happening to do it.

Decker gives a speech about how, sometimes, being undercover can make things seem real. And then, Lauren German’s performance is largely straight as Decker says Cain can’t be changed, there’s always going to be things about him that Lucifer can’t relate to, but he’s a good man who cares about the job, and Lucifer needs to put his personal issues aside to work with him for right now.

If she were giving this speech to a character who was in a romantic relationship with their professional partner or who had developed romantic feelings for their professional partner, very little would need to be changed in her performance to make it work.

Lucifer’s convinced to go back in, and he’s overjoyed when he sees Cain has arranged the table to his (Lucifer’s) liking.

“Wasn’t sure you were coming back,” Cain says.

“I made you a promise. And I am a man of my word, no matter what you may think.”

“I may have overreacted,” Cain replies. “I’m sorry.”

At this point, everyone has openly stopped to watch this exchange.

Lucifer admits Cain was right about Lucifer not having all the answers. “But I hope (hoped?) that- we can find them together. I mean, after all, you may be the only person on this planet that truly understands me. I’m not ready to give up on that.”

Everyone awws, and the two remember they’re still undercover.

So, Lucifer decides to lip-to-lip kiss Cain.

Seeing this, Decker goes to look at them out the window.

Next, Lucifer goes around getting signatures in the book from everyone. When the wife part of the AC&F couple starts to sign, her husband tries to stop her. Things escalate, and ending up grabbing a pair of garden shears, he insists he and his killer wife will be leaving.

Decker comes out with her gun, and she explains what’s going on to the confused, killer wife. The wife insists the husband and victim were having an affair, and the husband makes it clear their relationship was strictly client-seller.

The AC&F couple is all lovey-dovey now that their love is reaffirmed, and Lucifer comments it must be a sort of comfort that they’re arrested together.

Except, if they both go to prison, it’ll be different prisons.

Cain is either sad or wistful in agreeing, “Yeah, they do (have each other).”

At the station, Charlotte comes to see Alejandro’s character. She’s like, ‘Hey, I thought I was getting my life back on-track and was ready for normal, but it turns out, I’m still too much of a mess to be able to fully dedicate myself to a serious relationship right now.’

And I do like his response of telling her he doesn’t mind waiting for her to be ready for a serious relationship.

Meanwhile, Decker comes to Cain’s office. She makes a joke about his ‘divorce’ before inviting him to join everyone for a drink at a bar. He makes it clear a relationship between him and her wouldn’t be a good idea, and she’s all, ‘No, literally, I was asking if you wanted to join the others and me for some beers, not asking you out.’

He goes on about everyone dying, and she sympathetically notes that losing his brother is obviously still affecting him.

Well done, show.

Accepting things, she shows awesome maturity in asking him to simply confirm or deny them having a moment in an earlier episode simply so she’ll know whether she’s accidentally read more into things than actually happened.

“We did share a moment,” he says.

Stating it was a really nice moment, she leaves.

Going to Lucifer’s, he says this better be good. “I was really looking forward to sleeping far away from you tonight.”

Oh, come on, show. I absolutely love seeing characters bed share. It doesn’t matter if they’re family, platonic friends, potential lovers, or lovers. Are you trying to tell me Cain and Lucifer shared a bed during their assignment and I wasn’t shown it?

Putting this aside, Welling and Ellis have remarkably initimate chemistry during this scene.

Lucifer declares Cain is terrified of getting close to anyone, because, eventually, everyone will leave. He wants to die due to being tired of the loneliness.

Cain doesn’t deny this, but he does suggest Lucifer is more interested in spending time with someone who’s been screwed over by God as much as Lucifer himself has rather than trying to help Cain die.

Lucifer insists they’re friends now, and he continues, if they’re going to get revenge on God, they need to be committed.

“I’ve already married you. I’m not sure how much more committed I could be.”

There’s seduction coming off Lucifer when he says there’s so many things they didn’t get to try.

And so, Cain agrees they can use the chainsaw on him.

I liked this episode. I’ve seen episodes where two people of the same gender pretended to be a couple, but this is the first one where that wasn’t the joke. The joke was their differing personalities and how their non-romantic relationship can be easily read as a romantic one by people lacking the context of who they are. The fact there is homophobia in this universe was given a nod, but neither of them showed or were subjected to any.

Strictly speaking, the kiss wasn’t necessary, but I’m not complaining. Rather than being there for shock, titillation, or purely as comedy, it did make narrative sense on several different levels. Lucifer knew it’d annoy Cain, and most couples who’d just emotionally recovered from a fight and reaffirmed their bond would do so. No one at the party was surprised, shocked, and/or scandalised.

Fin.


End file.
